Three weeks ago I noticed a few bees (yellow jackets) hanging out in one specific area on the outside of the house. I found a small bee’s nest starting to form and knocked it down. I thought that was the end of it since I didn’t see any more bees coming and going in that specific area. Boy…was I wrong!
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Last week I was out doing yard work around the house and noticed more yellow jackets swarming on the other side of the house. As I made my way over to that side of the house I could see them and hear them. I knew there had to be a hive somewhere. I went and got my bee spray and foam. I also took a few minutes to put on jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. I learned a long time ago to cover up my skin as much as possible when dealing with bees.
I headed back to that side of the house ready to do battle with the bees. Wow, I wasn’t really prepared for what I found. After looking up by the air conditioner unit I finally saw the main bee hive. It was a LOT bigger than what I thought it would be. That hive wasn’t there three weeks ago…so in 3 weeks they made themselves a brilliant new home. Yellow jackets were going in and out by the hundreds! It’s hard to tell by my photo…but that hive is 8-10″ long!
A ladder was definitely needed along with the help of my son-in-law. We got up there “carefully” and knocked the entire bee’s nest down. Once we had it down…we hit it with the bee killing spray. I don’t like killing bees but my wife has a severe allergic reaction to bee stings, so those bees needed to go. It took about 30 minutes to get them dead or evicted from it. We then double-bagged it up and tossed it into the trash. Thankfully, no bee stings!
The one thing that I did find very unusual about this particular hive is that both yellow jackets and wasps were flying in and out of it. I have never seen a nest before that was being used by both! Hopefully we won’t see any more for the remaineder of the year.